Sam Tyler
take a look at the lawman Sam Tyler, on the outside, seems perfectly normal, if a touch workaholic. But that's understandable, since law enforcement has been his preferred profession since he added "police" and "job" into his vocabulary at three years old, which was then quickly by the words "what I want to be when I grow up". Policing is Sam's life, and other than a few trips to the pub, it doesn't seem like there's much more to him than that. He gets along with people fine, even if he does occasionally come off as cold, wry, and laconic, but that's okay since he's relatively new around London, as evidenced by his Salford accent. If you want to talk about football or go to the pub though, Sam's a decent second or third choice. On the outside, Sam Tyler is just one really boring person who's really good at his job. The most of what's known about him is that he came to London with his past life on hush hush, and that he prefers to keep it that way. The oddities only start to creep in when one notes the fact that he always keeps a handheld transceiver on his desk and at home, which isn't for work and isn't really ever used, and yet he always makes sure he changes the batteries. Sometimes he stares at it like it's only thing in the entire room and it would be easily to conclude that he maybe has some sort of a radio fetish (rule 34) if he didn't always look so pale and worried when he looks away. Which is very weird indeed, since no one else seems to be able to hear anything and the radio is usually more or less silent. He also sometimes likes to wax philosophical about the life beyond, and occasionally comes across as borderline suicidal, over some mysterious fuckup that is all his fault. It's all very confusing. he's in the best selling show The fact of the matter is... Sam Tyler is insane. Well, probably. To even to begin to try and understand why is to take a magical not-coma-dream trip back in time to before his arrival in London. Once upon another life, Sam Tyler was a DCI of the Greater Manchester Police, which was more or less his life's ambition come true. Everything was going well. He loved his job, he loved his car, he loved his twentieth century gadgets and do-dadery that helped him put criminals behind bars, and he loved his girlfriend, Maya. Then things took a turn for the worst when he was unable to find the right perpetrator for the continuing murders of several women, and Maya got kidnapped as the result of running off to do something stupid just to prove that he should trust his instincts a bit more. But it was okay. It was his fault, he shouldn't have gotten angry at her, but damnit, he was going to find her. It was going to be all right because he was going to save her. In the end, he would apologise for being such a massive prick, and she would be back, she would be safe. Good. Then he got hit by a car. Now generally, getting hit by a car falls into that column of things that Really Fucking Hurt, right below falling off of a skyscraper, so it was understandable when Sam passed out. However, it was less understandable when he woke up in bell-bottoms and a leather jacket in the 1970s. Everything was gone. His rank, his car, his twentieth century gadgets and do-dadery and by the book procedures. And Maya. Not just kidnapped, but not even born yet. His nice, comfortable, familiar flat was replaced by a run down dump with a cracked mirror he used to undergo a small existential crisis every morning. And instead of being more or less his own boss, his title of DCI had been taken by Imagination Figment A., Gene Hunt, an overweight, borderline alcoholic who was uncomfortably into male bonding and yet a homophobic pig who worked mostly by one procedure only: beat the shit out of someone first, wait a while for them to cough up their answer, beat them up some more if they took too long. Sam didn't fit in. He didn't get along with Gene Hunt. Both of those sentences are massive understatements. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, since he really didn't want to stick around, came Imagination Figment B., Annie Cartwright, the only person he confided the fact that he was from the twentieth century to, even if she did think he was crazy. And he thought he was too. The televisions talked to him, the Test Card Girl developed a pretty unhealthy habit of disappearing from the television into real life to scare the living shit out of him, and he could hear all of his previous life through radios; people talking to him in a coma. Maybe he was crazy. But it was a lot better to believe that he was just in a coma, and the whole world around him a dream world that was the result of that coma. Thankfully for him, however, all of his hopes were well placed. He returned to the nor mal world, leaving Imagination Figments A, B and all the others behind... while they were seconds away from being shot. Two years had grown an attachment - and he soon found himself contemplating a definitive step off the edge of his office building to go back to being moments before death to save them. He didn't jump. For weeks after his arrival back into the modern day, Sam had difficulty coping with his guilt and had to pop in at the local psychiatrist quite a few times, sometimes under orders. He was given a several weeks holiday off work, his superiors misinterpreting his attitude as his unsteadiness in getting reacquainted with being awake after so long. But unfortunately with nothing else to do, what with Maya having left him while he was in his coma and most of his friends thinking he was stark bollocking mad, he spent a lot of his time sulking and drinking in pubs before he went back to his job. And then one day, the radio started talking to him from the 1970s; which he was more than a little surprised by. Not exactly someone who had ever reacted to this sort of thing very quietly, Sam exploded about it rather publicly in the office. Now appearing more than a little insane, he was demoted to Detective Inspector until he could get his act together, and was forced temporarily into a desk job. Though he was eventually able to convince them to let him out on the field again over time, his name had by that point been left more or less unsalvageable. He was denied a return to his position, and days in the walls of the Greater Manchester Police became hours of hearing whispers about how very strange he was, about how he'd never really recovered from his car crash and subsequent vegetable state. Needless to say, he left. His new DCI, eager to get rid of the rogue element who still retained a distant but present reputation of being better at his job than him, offered Sam a transfer to London which he was more than happy to take to get away from all the talking behind his back. He's gotten more or less used to the voices by now, but he still clings to them as a testament to his guilt, and also because if they stop talking to him, it probably means they're dead. Or at least dead to him. He's in London in hopes that he'll be able to start over, with people who don't think he's crazy. It's difficult to say if he'll succeed. it's a godawful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair *laydays sailors fighting in the dance hall *gentlemen is there life on mars? I do not own Sam Tyler or Life on Mars, the television show or the song. The song belongs to David Bowie's jockstrap. I also don't own John Simm, Sam's actor, but that is only because he is sneaky. Category:Characters Category:Living